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The Penguins made a couple roster moves late Wednesday evening that will give the defensive corps a slightly new look.

The Penguins traded defenseman Ben Lovejoy to Anaheim in exchange for a fifth-round pick in 2014. They followed that by recalling blueliner Dylan Reese from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League.

Reese, 28, will be a welcome addition to the Penguins’ blue line. He is a solid, two-way defender with smarts and speed. He’s a perfect fit for the way the Penguins want their defensemen to play. He has the intelligence to know when to join a rush to create an odd-man break, but also has enough speed to get back into a defensive posture if the puck were turned over or countered.

Reese’s speed allows him to be solid in puck retrievals, and he’s shown a good ability to quickly move the puck to his forwards (which is what you want to do with the talented forwards the Penguins boast).

Reese is not an overly big guy (6-foot-1, 201 pounds). But what he lacks in size, he makes up in smarts. His biggest area of improvement since coming to professional hockey has been his positioning and stick work. Look for him to pick his spots and to have an active stick. Reese might not outmuscle guys, but he will outsmart them.

Reese’s arrival in Pittsburgh will be a sort of homecoming. He’s a Pittsburgh native, born and raised in Upper St. Clair. Watching legend Mario Lemieux lead the Penguins to back-to-back Stanley Cup titles in 1991 and ’92 inspired Reese to pick up his first hockey stick – even though he initially wore roller skates (four-wheel variety) and shot balls in a local tennis court. Now he is a step closer to possibly suting up for his boyhood team.

But Reese didn’t sign with the Penguins just because he was from Pittsburgh. And the Penguins didn’t sign him just because he was a native son. It’s a nice story. But both sides agreed to a one-year deal in the summer because each side saw it as a perfect fit, with the homecoming a nice anecdote.

“For me it’s just a great opportunity to play for a team that’s a winner,” Reese told me in September. “I’ve played with three different organizations and they all were good organizations, but we didn’t do too much winning to be honest. The Penguins are a perennial powerhouse; a team that’s expected to win with a couple of the best players in the world. It’s great to be at home with family and friends and play for a winner. It’s an organization that’s establishing itself over the last six, seven years as one of the best to play for in the league.”

I had a chance to sit down and interview Reese during WBS training camp in September. He’s a very intelligent and humble player. He’s very laid back and likable. Reese should be a good fit in the locker room.

Some final notes on Reese:

•As previously mentioned, Reese became interested in hockey after Lemieux helped lead the Penguins to back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in 1991 and ’92. He’s a part of the early generation of Pittsburgh players that became interested in the sport due to their championship success and having the greatest player to ever lace up skates. As he told me after signing with the team in July, “I’m a product of the Cups in the ‘90s and Mario.”
•He played for the Pittsburgh Hornets elite travel team in his youth.
•Before joining the Penguins, Reese played 74 NHL games with the NY Islanders over a three-year period.
•Reese was originally drafted by the NY Rangers in 2003 (seventh round, 209th overall), but never played for the Rangers.
•He played four years of college hockey at Harvard. How do you like them apples?

I have to add that the Penguins did a great job of scouting/developing to create an asset in regards to Lovejoy. The team saw his potential while he was defending for Dartmouth. The Penguins signed him as a free agent and developed him in the American Hockey League. Three years later, Lovejoy matured into a quality NHL blueliner.

However, the emergence of Simon Despres and Robert Bortuzzo means there are limited minutes to be handed out. So Lovejoy gets the chance to see more ice time in Anaheim and the Penguins add a draft pick. Now they’ll use that fifth-round pick to select a player and develop him into an asset down the road.

Lastly, I (and fellow writer Michelle Crechiolo) have to wish Lovejoy good luck in his venture out to the West Coast. “Lovey” was a great guy and one of the funniest people in the locker room, quality sense of humor. This is a huge blow to the local sports media, who could always rely on Lovejoy for a golden quote – either serious or hilarious in nature. And I’ll miss using headlines like “In the Name of Love(joy)” and “All You Need is Love(joy).” He’ll always hold a spot in the hearts of Penguins fans from his scene-stealing performances in HBO’s 24/7 series. My personal favorite was when “some players” took all the furniture out of his room as a rookie prank and he responded with “We’re going to find out who did this and probably do nothing about it.”

In other news related to the Pens trading away defensemen, both Ryan Whitney and Alex Goligoski were healthy scratches this week for the Oilers and Stars, respectively. Think the trades that netted us Chris Kunitz and Eric Tangradi (for Whitney) and James Neal and Matt Niskanen (for Goligoski) were masterpieces by Ray Shero?

Some eyebrow-raising news out of Dallas on Wednesday as the Stars announced defenseman Alex Goligoski would be a healthy scratch for this evening’s game against the Oilers.

Goligoski, 27, was the central figure in the trade that sent James Neal and Matt Niskanen to Pittsburgh in 2011.

Last year he led all Stars defensemen in scoring (9G-21A-30PTS) while averaging close to 23 minutes per game, and in January of 2012, inked a four-year contract extension worth $18.4 million — an annual cap hit of $4.6 million, making him Dallas’ highest-paid defenseman.

It’s unclear why Goligoski has been made a healthy scratch.

He leads all Dallas skaters this year in average time on ice (22:15) and, despite his sub par production, still leads all Stars blueliners in points (three).

He has a plus-2 rating and, just three games ago, played a season-high 25:24 in a 4-3 shootout win over Phoenix.

As for replacements, sounds as though Philip Larsen and Aaron Rome will draw in on defense tonight for Dallas.

Update: Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News spoke with Stars head coach Glen Gulutzan about the decision to make Goligoski a healthy scratch.

“Alex needs to get back to Alex’s level. It’s pretty cut and dried,’’ Gulutzan said.

In other news related to the Pens trading away defensemen, both Ryan Whitney and Alex Goligoski were healthy scratches this week for the Oilers and Stars, respectively. Think the trades that netted us Chris Kunitz and Eric Tangradi (for Whitney) and James Neal and Matt Niskanen (for Goligoski) were masterpieces by Ray Shero?

Those were fantastic trades. I wonder if the success of trading away young defensemen has led Shero to overvalue that asset. He seems to have over drafted young puck moving defensemen at the expense of the young scoring/physical wingers (which we desperately need). I will assume he knows what he is doing (based on track record).

Even if Bill Belichick was getting an atomic wedgie, his face would look exactly the same.

Those were fantastic trades. I wonder if the success of trading away young defensemen has led Shero to overvalue that asset. He seems to have over drafted young puck moving defensemen at the expense of the young scoring/physical wingers (which we desperately need). I will assume he knows what he is doing (based on track record).

Last year, I was sure that when we got the #8 overall pick from the Canes in the Staal-Sutter trade, that we were going to use it on the talented Swedish winger Filip Forsberg, but we took puck-moving defenseman Derrick Pouliot instead (and then another puck-moving defenseman Olli Maatta later in the first round...I was very happy with that one, though...Maatta was a huge value pick that late in the round).

The year before, I was sure that we were going to draft power forward Brandon Saad (a Pittsburgh native) when he was available to us late in round 1, but we took puck-moving defenseman Joe Morrow instead (and then, of course, another puck-moving defenseman in Scott Harrington in round 2).

It is interesting, though, that Morrow and Pouliot played together in junior in Portland, and Harrington and Maatta played together in junior in London, so those could be a couple of potential defensive pairing in the future (like Orpik and Scuderi once upon a time playing together in college in Boston).

In other news related to the Pens trading away defensemen, both Ryan Whitney and Alex Goligoski were healthy scratches this week for the Oilers and Stars, respectively. Think the trades that netted us Chris Kunitz and Eric Tangradi (for Whitney) and James Neal and Matt Niskanen (for Goligoski) were masterpieces by Ray Shero?